Alexander's POV:

The sound Nina makes when she hits the marble is genuine. That is the only unscripted thing about her—the breath that punches out, sharp and involuntary, the single honest note in an otherwise composed performance.

I pull on a shirt and button it without looking and wait.

Forty seconds. Then footsteps on the stairs—my mother's faster than my father's, Karl's measured behind both of them. Voices already forming before ...